I have been telling friends for years that I would never read War and Peace on my cellphone. Little did I realize how soon I might have the option. Not only has Amazon offered an app version of its e-Reader for the iPhone, it will soon be offering something similar for the Blackberry. Essentially this means that instead of reading the Kindle's 6-inch diagonal screen, you can now read the iPhone's 3.5-inch diagonal screen, and soon you'll be able to read on the Blackberry's 2.44-inch diagonal screen (is this technically an upgrade?). Which means you'd only have to turn 10,000 or so pages to get through Tolstoy's tome.

Maybe what we really need to accommodate this convergence of all things digital is a return to the days of Shrinklets. Remember Shrinklets? This was a pretty hilarious book published some years ago that cut down to size seventy of the world's great books. Here's the shrinklet of Moby Dick:

Whale chomped Ahab's leg in two."Hunt that beast!" he tells his crew.First, a welter of whaling schmoose,Then comes Moby and hell breaks loose.Smashup! Ahab's drowned in brine,Lashed to the whale by a harpoon line.Good (symbolic) with Evil vies,If you'd fathom it, you must rise.

Look, maybe I'll never read War and Peace in any medium. The book has already defeated me on four previous attempts to get through it. Perhaps I should wait for the shrinklet.